


Somewhere In Neverland

by andchaos



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Coda, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Coda, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:32:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bucky is hungry. That’s the primary reason that Steve docks a hard right and pulls over somewhere in Poland on their way to Siberia.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>AKA the CACW-coda story of what happened in between them stealing the chopper and rushing in to stop Zemo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere In Neverland

**Author's Note:**

> so basically, I saw this post that calculated the times it took everyone to arrive in Siberia, and according to it, Steve and Bucky should have _(must have)_ taken a rest stop somewhere for a night in order for the times of everyone's arrivals to line up right. and what would they do on said rest stop? uhm...obviously.
> 
> xoxox

          Bucky is hungry. That’s the primary reason that Steve docks a hard right and pulls over somewhere in Poland on their way to Siberia. Of course, he pretends there’s other reasons that are almost as important. But Bucky announces he’s hungry and Steve immediately starts pulling coordinates for the nearest place to land.

          “We can’t afford to make a stop,” Bucky says from the backseat of the chopper they stole, straight out of the battlefield and up, up, away into the sky. “We have to get to Siberia as soon as possible. Before Zemo does. You don’t understand what he can do with those super soldiers at his back.”

          Steve snorts. “I think I get the picture. But he’s not going to get there before us, and _he’s_ going to have to stop and rest for a bit too. It’s over a day’s journey. He’s only human, right? Humans need maintenance. It’s one of our more blatant evolutionary flaws.”

          “Just trying to be safe rather than sorry,” Bucky retorts. “I can survive, Steve. I survived a lot worse than a couple hours’ worth of _light hunger_.”

          “But you don’t have to anymore,” Steve says, shaking his head. He glances over his shoulder so he can look Bucky in the eye. Well, so Bucky can look _him_ in the eye. He’s being sincere and he needs Bucky to know it, that he really does care about him, that _somebody_ does care after him. “That’s the whole point, Buck. You’re not… _him_ anymore.”

          Bucky mutters darkly, “Then I’m not Bucky anymore, either.”

          Steve shakes his head again like it can stop Bucky’s words from entering his head.

          “Aw, don’t say that, Buck.” He knows he sounds pained, and a glance back shows that Bucky’s face is twisting up just like it used to when Steve pulled out this tone, like it’s ingrained in him or something. “Just because they…messed with your head—”

          “I’m _not_!” Bucky shouts, and his metal hand comes down hard on his armrest and breaks clean through it. The remnants of it clatter to the floor.

          Steve says calmly, “Don’t break the chopper before we make it there and back, please,” and Bucky breathes deeply a few times in and out of his nose before he says, “Fine. But stop telling me who I am and who I’m not.”

          After a beat, Steve says, “You got yourself a deal. But I’m still calling you jerk.”

          Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment. Steve wonders if he liked the joke (Tony always says he’s not very funny). Then, after a few excruciatingly long seconds, he hears Bucky snort, and lighter than air comes: “ _Punk_.”

          The grin doesn’t leave Steve’s face until they touch down.

 

          Steve honestly has no idea where they landed the helicopter. He knows they’re in Poland, and the GPS on the chopper swore they were only a twenty minute walk eastward until they hit a remote town, but the GPS wasn’t so much with names of cities; it just showed coordinates and indicated the presence of people through infrared sensors, which was enough for Steve. He shuts off the engine and starts changing into civvies; Bucky follows suit when he notices Steve doing it. After they’re both done, Steve jerks his head to the right.

          “So, east is that way.”

          “What’s east?” Bucky asks while they’re both climbing out of the chopper together.

          Steve shrugs. “Some town,” he supplies unhelpfully. “You coming or what?”

          He think he hears Bucky mutter something scathing, but then he catches up so they’re walking side by side, and Steve doesn’t really mind whatever rude thing Bucky had to say to him. Everything in him just instinctively relaxes when he’s nearby. In his mind, it’s only been a few years without Bucky, but his body—his body knows he’s had nearly a century without him at his right hand. It weighed like a chain around his neck. It suffocated like water still in his frozen lungs. Now it’s gone—it had never really been.

          On instinct, Steve bumps his shoulder into Bucky’s. It’s the flesh and bone one. Bucky looks over at him.

          “What?”

          Steve grins.

          “Been awhile, slugger.”

          For the first time since they pointed weapons at each other on the streets of DC, Bucky’s mouth stretches wide into a smile. It’s a real one—all teeth and gums and scrunched up eyes.

          “Fuck you,” says Bucky.

          “I’m serious,” says Steve. He watches Bucky’s smile fade away, all slow-like, before he says anything else. “We haven’t had a chance to…I mean, it’s just been fighting a battle or _planning_ a battle. I…”

          “Hey,” says Bucky, pulling up short. Steve pulls to a stop in the knee-high snow. “I know.”

          Steve can feel a familiar ache crawling up his throat. Before he can give voice to it, Bucky grabs his shoulder and pulls him in hard, fierce, into the roughest hug Steve’s gotten since—well, since Bucky, really. Nobody hugs like Bucky does. Steve clutches hard at his back and buries his face into the space where his shoulder meets his neck.

          “I know,” Bucky’s saying where he’s buried himself in Steve’s hair. “I know, I know.”

          God, Steve could just crumble to snow and join the rest of their frozen terrain, to be trod on or ignored for the rest of eternity. After everything—and _Bucky_ is comforting _him_. The thought is enough to get Steve to lift his head, no matter how comforting the circle of Bucky’s arms is. _Seventy years_. Plus a few with him with his head actually above water.

          But Bucky just pulls him back in, and this time _he_ hides his face in _Steve’s_ neck. Steve squeezes him back instinctively, because Bucky’s making himself small, and he never does that. Even before the war, if he curled in on himself or on Steve like this, it was impossible to ignore. Big, loudmouthed, swaggering Bucky Barnes—reduced to cinders. It was enough to make anyone clutch hard at him like their life depended on it. Steve felt like his kind of did. Or like Bucky’s did anyway, and his and Steve’s were the same, just different strands on the same string of golden thread.

          They stand there for a long, long time. Steve holds him and pets his hair and rubs his back and whispers in his ear, soothing and gentle and soft. After awhile, he realizes that Bucky is crying, and he pulls him even closer to his heart.

          “I was awake,” Bucky croaks against his throat, all of a sudden. “I wasn’t me but I was me, and I— _seventy years_.”

          “It wasn’t you,” Steve murmurs automatically.

          “It doesn’t matter,” Bucky whispers. Steve supposes that it really doesn’t.

          “It’s okay,” he says anyway. “It’s okay, Buck. I’m here, I’m really here.”

          Bucky raises his head. They’re not so far apart, really, mingling breaths in the cold air. Their stare holds for three and a quarter seconds—Steve is counting—before Bucky gives a tiny gasp and surges across the remaining distance.

          It’s 2016—it’s 1944—it’s 1934, and Bucky, _his_ Bucky, whose hands (warm, cold, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter) are clutching Steve’s arms, and whose mouth is opening for him, whose head is tilting so Steve can fit his tongue against Bucky’s, whose hair (short, long, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter) is slipping through Steve’s fingers, whose heart is beating in _thumpthumpthump_ s against Steve’s where their chests are pressed together. Bucky gasps and he’s sixteen getting his first kiss in their rundown apartment in the city, he’s 26 with his best friend pressing open-mouthed bruises to his throat that will fade in an hour before they even leave his tent, he’s 98 and his long-lost love is gasping his name into his mouth somewhere in Poland twenty minutes from anywhere.

          When it gets to be too much, Steve slows down, pushing Bucky back until they’re not kissing anymore. They’re both panting; Bucky’s eyes are rimmed red from the tears he dripped onto Steve’s sweatshirt.

          Then, nonsensically, Bucky starts to laugh.

          “I haven’t cried since 1966,” he says.

          It’s not funny. But Bucky’s laughing, so Steve laughs too. God forbid he leave Bucky alone in this.

          “And here I thought Nazis were big on breakdowns,” says Steve.

          He grins because it makes Bucky laugh again, and yeah, he’s pretty sure they weren’t too keen on _that_ , either. He wants to make Bucky laugh every second for the rest of his life.

          “Oh, we are so grim,” says Bucky. He looks a little cheerier as he pulls out of Steve’s arms, but he just keeps looking at him and grinning. “We are _so_ messed up.”

          “Yeah…That just about sums it up,” Steve agrees. He slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat and somewhere warm for us to rest up, huh? We have a big day of ass-kicking ahead of us tomorrow.”

          Bucky arm curls warmly around Steve’s waist, and they set off trudging through the snow, heading vaguely eastward.

 

          The town is very remote, very sparse, and Steve can’t pronounce the name of it.

          Oddly enough, the name _Tjenosk_ _ław_ slips off Bucky’s tongue like Steve knows how to say _good_ and _freedom_ and _Bucky_ , but he can’t get the pronunciation just right no matter how many times Bucky holds his jaw and tries to get him to move his mouth correctly. Eventually, he tells Steve that he’s “close enough” and they head into the city; Bucky promises to do most of the talking if they have to interact with the locals.

          “We should split up,” Bucky says when they stop in—well, Steve would call it the town square. Since they’ve stopped in a little fishing village whose population, based on a quick scan, can’t be bigger than a few hundred people, Steve wouldn’t really call it that. Maybe more of a marketplace.

          At Bucky’s words, though, he wheels around on him.

          “Why?” he asks, mildly alarmed. “We can pretty literally see everything from right here.”

          Bucky isn’t looking at him, but is instead rubbing at the scruff on his jaw and peering intensely at a few women walking by, holding baskets and chattering fast in a language Steve doesn’t understand. Bucky narrows his eyes at them until they pass.

          “We should make sure it’s secure,” Bucky says once they’re gone.

          Steve rests his hand on Bucky’s arm—his real one. When Bucky looks at him, he seems to unwind just enough to be visible.

          “Oh,” he says, although Steve hasn’t really said anything. “Okay.”

          “Yeah?” Steve asks.

          Bucky shrugs. It looks jerky and if Steve could call a gesture a lie, he would accuse that one of it.

          “I trust you,” says Bucky.

          Steve doesn’t really have time to get choked up about it, so he just claps Bucky on the shoulder and says, “Alright. In that case, first things first: We need to find some food.”

          As if on cue, Bucky’s stomach starts to growl. Steve gives a little half-grin to Bucky’s sheepish look.

          “So,” says Steve. “Takeout or sit-down?”

          They start walking again, in the direction that they can smell barbecue coming from. They don’t really know where they’re going, but it isn’t that hard to just follow the scent.

          “Last time I went to a farmer’s market, my day didn’t go so well,” Bucky says wryly.

          “Well, you found me,” says Steve.

          “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” says Bucky.

          Steve immediately draws away from him so he can shove him in the shoulder, but then Bucky just grins his dumb charming grin and it’s so _Bucky_ that Steve immediately throws an arm around his shoulder and presses a kiss into his temple. Bucky allows it for a few seconds before he bats him away.

          “Alright, alright,” he says, “We’re in _public_ , asshole. I know you’re strong, but let’s not fight off a bunch of close-minded locals, alright?”

          Steve doesn’t know Poland’s social or political laws on the matter, but he’ll have to inform Bucky of the good news once they get back to the states. As it is, he just rolls his eyes and takes his arm off of him; plenty of time for that later.

          They find a nice little outdoor grill-type place to eat at and sit together under the same umbrella. The waitress brings them complimentary side salads before loping off again. Bucky loops his feet through Steve’s beneath the table and Steve feels calmer than he has in a long, long while, with his ankles hooked with Bucky’s and him casting him little smiles across the table beneath his curtain of dark hair.

          On a whim, Steve reaches across and sweeps some out of his eyes, tucks it behind his ear instead. He draws his hand back instead of tracing fingers over Bucky’s cheek like he wants to, because he thinks they’re getting a little close to toeing that public line again.

          “You should think about cutting your hair again,” says Steve.

          “Why?” asks Bucky. He’s smirking. “You always liked a little something extra to grab on to.”

          Steve blushes and kicks at his legs before tangling them back together. “I meant as a cover, you smart-aleck. The authorities know what you look like. It might help throw them off your trail if you, you know, cut your hair, maybe shave a bit.”

          The pout Bucky throws at him _definitely_ isn’t honest.

          “You don’t like the scruff?” he asks.

          Steve lowers his voice considerably. “You don’t know how much I _do_ like it,” he admits in an undertone.

          Bucky laughs, a good, hooting laugh. He’s clutching at his chest and leaning back in his chair.

          “Ooh, Captain _America_!” he cries. “You are _not_ the patron saint of good, wholesome family values that we all thought you were!”

          Steve grumbles, “Shut up,” and tosses some olives at him. Bucky’s still grinning like he just told the funniest joke in the whole wide world.

          Before he can go further, their waitress comes back to take their orders. They go simple, just a couple of burgers. Bucky practically lights up when he sees them on the menu (“ _Burgers_ , Steve. I haven’t had those in seventy-five years!”) so of course Steve can’t deny him the works. After the waitress collects their menus and leaves again, Steve turns back to Bucky. By now, he’s got his elbows propped up on the table and his chin resting in the cradle his fingers make. Steve kicks out at him lightly.

          “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

          Bucky doesn’t answer for a second. It’s then that Steve notices that Bucky wasn’t looking at him like he had originally thought; he’s zoning out, staring off into a space that just so happens to have Steve in the way. Steve whistles and waves his hands in front of Bucky’s face.

          “Hello? Earth to Sergeant Barnes.”

          Bucky shakes his head like he’s a very old, very droopy dog just waking up from a long, long nap. Steve softens his expression into a gentle, soothing smile.

          “What’s going on in that head of yours, Buck?”

          Bucky shakes his head again. This time, Steve doesn’t think he’s so confused.

          “I’m just…remembering,” Bucky says.

          It’s not very helpful, but he doesn’t offer up any more than that. In fact, he doesn’t say anything more at all for a while. The waitress comes back to bring their drinks and promises that their food will be out soon, and Bucky still doesn’t say anything. Steve’s both content and discomfited by the silence. He and Bucky are used to filling in the noiseless space with other meaning, and they’re comfortable just _existing_ with one another as well. On the other hand, he can tell that this isn’t some regular lull in conversation. He’s fine, though, waiting for Bucky to gather his thoughts (or his memories, apparently) and decide when he’s ready to return to the woken world.

          He starts eating mechanically when the waitress brings their food. He’s halfway through his ketchup-drenched burger when he looks up at Steve suddenly, alert. He says simply, “I like ketchup.”

          Steve crooks a tiny smile at him. He resists the urge to sigh.

          “Yeah, Buck,” he says quietly. “You do.”

          Bucky doesn’t seem to have much more to say after that little revelation. Steve fills the silence then instead, satisfied that the floodgates have been carefully unlocked by Bucky, who’s now standing idly by waiting for the water to start flowing. Steve tells him about the time Bucky put so much ketchup on a hotdog he had to lick it off his hands and then complained it tasted of the grease he hadn’t washed off his hands from work; he tells him of the time he got drunk and yelled at a vendor for running out of ketchup before they showed up because he was really, really jonesing for it; he tells him how he went through a phase of putting ketchup on anything he could get his hands on, and for a month Bucky’s cigarette rations were partially transferred to ketchup rations instead. Then Bucky’s laughing again and the sound is so beautiful that Steve could have stopped time and floated up to the sky just to pull down the stars and say, _Look, look at him. You’re timeless and you haven’t learned to shine half so bright_.

          They finish their meal in better spirits than they dropped into during it, and Steve carefully folds bills on the table so he doesn’t leave a credit card trail. Then they stand up and Bucky, looking a little worn after the resurfacing of some of his memories, leans heavily into his side. Steve just winds an arm around his middle and presses a kiss to his hair when they’re down a deserted street with no one around to witness the indiscretion.

          They have to wander a ways to find a suitable place to lay down in for the night. Bucky says a few times that he’ll be fine just passing out in the chopper, but Steve’s determined to give him somewhere _warm_ for a night. Even if Bucky can’t sleep somewhere soft—hell, Steve still has problems with that sometimes, and he’s supposed to be four and seventy years unacclimatized to war conditions—he should at least be comfortable in every other sense of the word.

          There’s a tiny inn a couple streets over. Bucky’s practically dozing on his shoulder by now, so Steve quietly gives over a false name and real money and the woman, a plump smiling mother with kids tugging at her skirts, slides them a key and tells them to stay as long as they like. Steve casts her one more thousand-watt smile as he half-carries Bucky up the stairs and steers him into their room for the night.

          It’s a tiny place, with no space for much more than a bed and a chest of drawers in the main room, along with a wooden desk that has a small TV propped onto it.  There’s with a tiny bathroom just off of the main room. It’s cozy, but overall there’s really not much to look at. That doesn’t stop Bucky—after Steve rouses him somewhat—from doing a quick sweep for bugs, but he comes up empty. Steve pulls on some sweatpants and collapses onto the double bed, then opens his arms.

          “Come here,” he says quietly.

          Bucky shucks his jeans but doesn’t strip further than that. He doesn’t join Steve on the bed, though. He just stares at him.

          At length, he says, “Not sure I can sleep on a bed.”

          He grunts it, like he’s kind of embarrassed about it. Steve just slides obediently to the floor, dragging a pillow with him. Bucky, looking a little happier, slides in next to him and the wall. He curls up against Steve’s shoulder like he’s taking the brunt of a grenade, and Steve brushes his fingers through Bucky’s hair and whispers, “Oh, Buck. Why did they have to do this to _you_?”

          There’s no answer; he’s pretty sure Bucky’s already out cold. Then, like a ghost on the wind, he hears Bucky say,

          “I don’t know…We were always pretty close. Maybe it was a hate crime?”

          Steve has to fight not to bust a rib laughing, but he muffles it against Bucky’s hair, and he can feel Bucky smiling against his throat. After a while, when he’s calmed down and no longer hysterical, he resumes petting through Bucky’s hair, repetitive and soothing. Soon afterwards he realizes that he really has gone to sleep this time, but even with the carpeting, Steve takes awhile longer to drift off. He can’t stop listening for the heavy sound of booted footfalls outside the door, coming to rip the dream away.

 

          When he wakes up, he’s not sure, at first, why exactly he’s on the floor. Then he remembers that Bucky needed it to fall asleep. Then he notices that Bucky’s not there beside him anymore.

          “Buck?” Steve calls. He sits up, propping himself up with one hand. “Bucky?”

          “In here,” Bucky calls from the bathroom. He sounds a little muffled. Steve hears him spit, then the water running. Bucky comes out a second later, swiping a hand across the back of his mouth. “Sorry, needed to brush my teeth. Been a few…days.”

          Steve huffs a relieved laugh and climbs to his feet. Bucky sits down on the edge of the bed and just looks at him for a little bit, tilting his head to the side and really staring. Steve doesn’t say anything, but when he speaks again, Bucky’s voice is quieter, the way he used to talk to Steve when they kids and Steve was really sick, and nobody really knew if he was going to make it or not.

          “Didn’t mean to startle you, sweetheart,” Bucky says. He reaches out with one hand and encircles Steve’s wrist with it, but he doesn’t do anything but start to rub gentle circles there with his thumb.

          “You didn’t,” Steve lies automatically. “Just...got concerned for tactical reasons, is all.”

          Bucky makes this face like he doesn’t really believe him, and he tugs a little on Steve’s arm. Steve shuffles closer on instinct. Where Bucky calls, Steve follows. Straight into the jaws of…

          “Hey,” says Bucky, interrupting his thoughts. He reaches up, and Steve automatically bends a little to accommodate him. Bucky smooths out the lines on his forehead. “What did I always tell you about worrying so much?”

          “Something about my face sticking, right?”

          “That’s right,” Bucky says.

          He’s still using that soft, deathbed-side voice, and Steve finds himself charmed despite himself—more like a snake in a basket than a girl in a dress, though. But Bucky smiles his beautiful little smile and guides Steve down to sit beside him, and then his hands are on either side of his waist—one warm, one cool—and Bucky leans in close like he’s going to kiss him real soon.

          “Can’t risk ruining that beautiful face, can we?” he breathes. “The whole fuckin’ free world depends on your perfect goddamn face.”

          Steve’s breathing is picking up a little, but he still reaches up and cradles Bucky’s cheek in one big hand—and Bucky leans into it, eyes fluttering closed, like a touch-starved dog off the side of the road.

          “You don’t know what it was like,” Steve breathes shakily, “Thinking you were dead. During the war, and after.”

          “Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” Bucky murmurs. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. “Thinking I was dead, I mean.”

          Steve thinks maybe he’s about to cry, but then Bucky suddenly looks at him and says, “Hey sweetheart, no crying, no crying,” and Steve _knows_ he’s going to cry. Bucky reaches his warm hand up to rub his thumb against Steve’s cheekbone, right where the tears would fall, but he knows Bucky is there so there’s no real reason to cry, anymore.

          “That’s right, baby,” Bucky coaxes, “no use crying. No use crying now. I’m here. I’m here.”

          Steve, again, remembers that he has no real right to be upset right now. He has known Bucky was alive for two years; and he has known that he was no longer with HYDRA for approximately that same amount of time; and he has been with him, really, in the flesh, seen and touched and heard him, for enough time since he found him that there isn’t too much of a reason for this type of reaction. Bucky is _alive_. Steve knows this. He has been with Steve for all this time. Yet Steve can’t help clutching to him like a little boy that just found his mom in the grocery store, if said grocery store was a Nazi organization and he had been lost for an entire lifetime.

          He realizes that Bucky is still stroking his face. Steve swallows hard. He pulls back to look Bucky in the eye.

          “I’m sorry,” he says. “I—I didn’t mean to…do that.”

          “You hardly did anything,” says Bucky. “Hell, you didn’t even cry.”

          “I almost did.”

          “‘Almost’ only counts in horseshoes, honey.”

          Maybe the other H is too hard to say. Steve hiccups a laugh. Bucky smiles and makes this movement that’s kind of like brushing hair out of someone’s face, except Steve’s hair isn’t long enough to warrant it.

          “Anything else you want to get out of your system?” Bucky teases, but it’s gentle, and not at all like how others tease him. Somehow everything Bucky says turns soft in his mouth when it’s coming at Steve.

          “Uh. Don’t tell the guys at work?”

          Bucky chuckles. Steve shakes his head.

          “Nah,” he tries again. “I just…Shit, Buck. It’s been a long, long road.”

          Bucky’s smile turns grim. “It isn’t over yet.”

          Steve wonders things. He wonders when Bucky grew his hair, and he wonders when he started dropping his Brooklyn _ain’t_ s and early twentieth century _doll_ s, and he wants to know if he’ll ever smooth the lines out of his forehead, and he thinks about how he can still see the soft parts of Bucky under all the grit and horror and how that shouldn’t be possible, after everything.

          Then Bucky says, “By the way, I been meaning to ask you about TVs—why the _fuck_ does anyone watch TLC?” and Steve might as well have had his brain scrubbed clean with how fast he busts up laughing.

          “Oh, I really did miss you,” Steve says, but he’s happier now.

          Bucky grins too. “Back atcha, Cap.”

          It’s none of the desperation but all of the want when Steve leans in and he greedily takes. It’s not how he usually acts, but he’s always been just a little bit selfish, just a little bit reckless, when it comes to Bucky Barnes.

          He can feel Bucky grinning against his lips, so it’s a little bit of teeth right before Bucky hands come up into his hair and _pull_ , and Steve swears he outright moans. He _knows_ he did, because Bucky starts laughing against his lips.

          “Still got a thing for that, huh?”

          “Shut up, you wanted to roleplay in my uniform.”

          Bucky gets his hair in a tight grip again so he can pull him back into a kiss, possibly to distract him. It works; Steve quickly forgets what they were talking about as he works on keeping up with Bucky’s tongue against his, with the teeth biting into his lip (and then into his neck when Steve pulls back to breathe, and _god_ , seriously). After awhile Steve can tell that the short hair is kind of annoying his metal fingers. In a valiant attempt to rectify that, Steve pulls back, just enough that he can really see Bucky’s red slick lips, which again— _god,_ seriously. Bucky looks a little dazed, but still very much in charge of what’s going on. He always kisses a little wetly, but Steve’s kind of going crazy over it. He’s always gone a little crazy over it.

          “What—do you think—you’re doing?” Bucky asks between desperate presses of his mouth to Steve’s throat.

          “Enjoying it,” Steve gasps.

          He knows that sounds incredibly lame, but Bucky doesn’t pause to make fun of him, or to check if he’s kidding. Steve guesses he knows him too well by now.

          Bucky stops to pull on Steve’s t-shirt, rumbling, “ _Jesus_ , Steve, you’ve always been slow, but come on now—” and Steve mumbles, “Sorry, sorry. You too, you too,” because he doesn’t really remember a lot about _talking_ just now. He has more important things to do, like try and undo the zip on Bucky’s sweatshirt when his fingers are trembling.

          They shift up the bed once they’ve gotten their shirts off, and Steve settles real nice and snug against the two pillows still left on the bed. He reaches out for Bucky automatically, who settles on top of him real nice. Their legs tangle together down near the end of the bed—they’re going to have to do something about that later. For now Steve presses greedy fingers into Bucky’s sides and keeps him pressed against him as much as he possibly can. If anything, he can definitely take the weight.

          It’s just like that for awhile. It’s messy and slow and _reverent_ , really; Steve runs his hands across the broad (scarred, soft) expanse of Bucky’s back, and combs his fingers through his hair, and presses his palms to his cheeks and his chest and the sides of his neck—and it’s like he’s a pious man returning to church after a long time away, drinking the blood and touching the pews and lowering his head in prayer, ready to make up for a century’s missed worship.

          Bucky’s panting a little when he pulls away, not for the first time, so that he can catch his breath. Steve can’t let him get away now though, and he urges Bucky up enough that Steve can sit up. He encircles Bucky’s waist with his arms and presses soft kisses all across his chest, just below his collarbone. Bucky runs his good hand through Steve’s hair.

          “You’re still so beautiful,” Steve whispers.

          Bucky says nothing. One metal finger lifts Steve’s chin again, and this time when he catches Steve in a kiss, it’s sweeter than before. Steve won’t lay back down again, not without license to touch as he pleases. Bucky rolls over with him and lets Steve hover over him.

          Steve takes his time. He makes his way down his body slow, pressing his lips to his chest, licking hard and fast over his nipples (it always made Bucky arch off the bed and make the most beautiful little moans—it still does, and now his voice is even throatier than it used to be, and Steve honest to god moans right back), sucking marks into his scarred abdomen that will be gone before they’re finished. He doesn’t mind; Bucky’s his for now, and he will always find his way back.

          Bucky’s wearing these little black boxer briefs he must have picked up from somewhere. Steve doesn’t move for a minute after he hooks his fingers into them, but then Bucky says, “Come _on_ , sweetheart,” in this absolutely gorgeous little gasp, and Steve looks up to see his head pressed hard into the pillow behind him. Steve chuckles and slides them off his legs, like _he’s_ the soldier and Bucky’s the captain, but it doesn’t really matter he supposes; anything to get Bucky to keep making that _noise_ , Christ. And Steve tells him that, murmurs it against his thighs as he’s pressing deep open kisses against the insides of them, watching Bucky shake halfway out of his mind on the bedspread above him. And he keeps saying all these ridiculous things, like, “ _Christ_ , Buck,” and “Look at you, look at you, just as fucking beautiful as 1945,” and Bucky makes this broken little laugh sound and says, “ _Shit_ , Steve, look at you cursin’ up a storm just because some dumb pretty boy waltzes into view,” and Steve can’t even correct him because it’s pretty much true, if you erase all the middle parts and smudge out the edges.

          Steve hasn’t sucked someone off since the 40s, so his technique is more than a little sloppy. He guesses Bucky hasn’t had his dick sucked since the 40s either though, so it doesn’t really matter—he starts making this noise as soon as Steve puts his mouth around him, so Steve guesses neither of them are going to be able to keep it up for very long.

          Bucky must be thinking along the same lines, because he tugs at Steve’s hair with his warm hand and says, “Between you and the years, Stevie, even super serum ain’t gonna give me the strength to last too long—” and Steve huffs a laugh, all warm and relieved, into the inside crease of this thigh.

          “Shut up and let me have this for a minute, then,” Steve says when he’s got control of himself again, and Bucky’s muttering good-natured curses the way he used to when Steve badgered Bucky about doing his homework and he ended up doing pretty well in the end, or like when Steve picked a fight he didn’t do too badly in after all.

          It really is only another minute or so, though, until Bucky’s panting out, “Steve, Steve, I’m almost a hundred years old, my refrac might not be what it was—” and Steve pulls off.

          (He doesn’t even let the thought cross his mind that he misses the taste of him already, because for one, he barely had it just now; two, Bucky would rib him until the end of days if Captain America talked about missing the taste of some guy’s cum; and three, he still has the taste of him, a little bit, sweat and raw Bucky that lingers on his tongue when he kisses a sloppy path back upwards until he can reach Bucky’s mouth. And Bucky frames his face with hands so his fingers curl behind his ears, and they kiss like the world really is ending, then.)

          Bucky props his knees up a little bit, and Steve _groans_ , because it gets one of each of their thighs right in between each other’s and Bucky has never been reserved. He grabs Steve’s waist _hard_ , the kind of grip that would have left bruises, before—and he just goes for it, puts his mouth on the side of his neck and starts sucking, starts riding the thigh Steve’s got between his legs. Steve braces himself on either side of his head and just starts rolling his hips, making them both moan when the pressure hits them like a wave, receding and coming in, over and over until they’re shaking and Steve can feel sweat dripping down the curve of his naked spine.

          Bucky’s hands slip down, past his waistband and into his sweatpants to knead at his ass. The metal hand is a relief now, something cool in this sweltering bubble of him and Bucky, of _himandBucky_.

          “You’re still wearing pants,” Bucky grunts.

          Steve feels lightheaded, like the lack of oxygen from an asthma attack, except heady and perfect and not at all like he’s about to pass out. He pulls Bucky in for another desperate press of their lips. It’s quick, because neither of them are breathing right to really get into it deeply, and then they’re sharing hot, ragged breaths in the small space between their parted mouths.

          “Take ‘em off me then, hotshot.”

          Bucky smirks. “Think you can tell me what to do, Captain?”

          He says the title all wryly, with that smug air he always got when he was talking to girls in the dance hall. Steve’s about to snark him right back when Bucky wraps an arm around his waist and flips them over fluidly.

          “Not my captain anymore,” Bucky says, but it’s all self-satisfaction and Steve doesn’t really mind it anyway.

          He gets out a little, “Fall in line, _Sergeant_ ,” but that’s all Bucky affords him before he plunges his hand down Steve’s sweatpants and starts jacking him off. There’s no preamble, no buildup; he just wraps his right hand around him like it’s been no time at all, like it was only yesterday that they were exchanging fleeting kisses before running into battle ( _they are, they are_ —Steve keeps forgetting that it isn’t over yet), and he remembers just how Steve likes it, just how tight and just how fast, and Steve throws his head back and arches his back, grabbing hard to Bucky’s shoulders to keep him grounded to _something_. To anything. His head is swimming, _Bucky Bucky BuckyBuckyBuck_ —

          Bucky grunts, “Yeah, sweetheart, come on,” and buries his head in Steve’s neck. He always had a thing about it, but now it’s really something else—and Steve blindly reaches for his jaw so he can pull him up and kiss him sloppily, a mess of out-of-practice tongues and fumbling hands, like they’re sixteen again and just kissing each other for the first time, like it’s uncharted waters instead of something they’ve mapped out one million times before.

          It’s getting too hot again, and Steve pulls away to lay back, panting. Bucky gives him a moment’s respite before he wraps an arm around his waist again and pulls him up, so they’re sitting together on the bed. Bucky really is just sitting, but he’s hauled Steve up so he’s straddling his lap with his knees on either side of his thighs. Steve’s just that little bit taller, and it’s strange and not all at once. Then he reaches down and starts jacking him off, and Bucky makes this guttural noise in the back of his throat and crosses their arms so he can give as good as he gets. It’s really obvious he’s trying to make it better for Steve than Steve is for him.

          “It’s not a competition,” Steve moans into where he’s got his face pressed along his cheek.

          “Then why am I winning?” Bucky returns.

          He’s got his free hand roaming Steve’s back and he’s blindly pressing kisses into Steve’s jaw, his temple, his hair. It feels so much like _safety_ and _home_ and other words he hasn’t had in a long, long time that Steve can feel it rushing in on him, like a wave roaring into shore.

          “Bucky—” he trembles. “Bucky, Buck—I’m—I’m not gonna make—”

          “Me too,” Bucky gasps, “me too—”

          Steve can feel it, all seventy-four years (and however many days, however many minutes—he forced himself to stop counting) of missing Bucky coursing through him, all two years (is it strange? he wonders, to miss someone and have someone at the same time?) of relief that Bucky was even _alive_ rushing in his super, super blood; and it comes to him like a tsunami, really, like he miscalculated the force of it, and he can’t help the long, drawn-out shout of Bucky’s name that breaks out of his throat (Bucky’s never needed permission, not from him) when he comes with a great, shuddering finale.

          After, he’s panting hard into Bucky’s shoulder; he realizes Bucky’s been stroking his hair. When he can, Steve presses a kiss to the skin beneath his lips and sits back to look Bucky in the eye.

          “I wanna see you too, Buck.”

          Bucky’s shaking from how close he is (he’s _forgotten_ he used to do that, how could he have forgotten?) when Steve starts up his rhythm again. Bucky keeps losing the rhythm when they kiss so Steve just presses their foreheads together and keeps his eyes on Bucky’s, squeezed closed like that, and he listens to his ragged breathing, and feels his presence, his aliveness, and he holds onto that like it’s pulling him out of the ice all over again. Bucky bites down on the meat of his shoulder hard enough to break skin when he comes, his hips rolling over and over in gentle, erratic waves. Steve doesn’t stop stroking him until he’s settled, and he knows it’s over when Bucky turns to press a kiss to the side of his face.

          They don’t say anything for a long while. They just sit there, holding each other. Steve’s still in his ruined sweats, sitting on Bucky’s lap; Bucky’s naked, his arms a loose circle around Steve’s waist, his cheek pressed into Steve’s chest. Outside, everything sounds as peaceful as it does in Steve’s own head.

          After a long, long time, Bucky speaks up.

          “Brings a new meaning to friendly fire, huh?”

          Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment. Bucky lifts his head and pins Steve with a million-watt grin. Then, like so much roiling whirlpools in his heart, Steve leans his head back and begins to laugh.

 

          They curl up in bed together after they finally find it in themselves to stop clutching on to each other like lifelines and actually move. They have to shift back onto the floor when Bucky wants to sleep, but the pillow’s still there and they sleep with all their limbs tangled together, so Steve more than doesn’t mind. Steve falls asleep easier than he has in so, so long, his arms around Bucky’s back and his nose buried in Bucky’s hair, breathing in the raw scent of him. Even now that he doesn’t smell like Lucky Strikes and cheap cologne, there’s still that inalienable _Bucky_ ness to his scent that no amount of showers and time and change could ever wash out of him. Even in sleep, Steve clutches to him again like he might be ripped away at any moment.

          When they wake, it’s barely daybreak. They both know they should get going soon. Without more than a shared glance, they begin gathering what meager amount they managed to spread around the motel room. Steve kind of really wants a shower, so they give each other each a few minutes under the spray before tugging their civilian clothes back on and shoving the rest of their scant gear into their pockets (Steve was grateful for his sweatpants the night before, but now they’re annoying to try and roll into a ball small enough to fit in his pants). They take one last look around the room—they did a cursory clean up, but it’s not great—and then shut off the lights and carefully close the door behind them.

          While Steve checks them out, Bucky glances nonstop around the lobby. He’s shifting nervously between his feet, and Steve doesn’t have to ask what the trigger is—he just gets through the motions as quickly as he can so he can grab Bucky’s elbow and start leading him out of there.

          Bucky seems to breathe a little better once they’re out in the open air. His jaw unclenches a bit anyway, and Steve thinks he sees all his muscles relaxing minutely underneath his clothes, but it’s hard to tell with the layers.

          The trudge through town is quiet, the morning still early. Few locals are up and about, and Steve and Bucky don’t have much to say. Steve stops at a fruit stand to pick up something for breakfast on the go, and they both munch into a plum as they continue past the town limits and back towards the chopper. It isn’t much, but it will have to serve as sufficient fuel. They have a couple of energy bars in the helicopter anyway. Steve still needs a lot of calories to keep him energized, and he doesn’t really know what Bucky’s knockoff serum warrants in terms of sufficient nutrition, but he would rather be safe than sorry.

          After they’re fed and watered a little better, Bucky straps himself into his seat while Steve checks all the mirrors and controls. Then he does up his seatbelt as well. Bucky’s quiet has grown grimmer and grimmer as they walked, and now, as Steve shifts into gear so they can start lifting off, he throws a worried glance over his shoulder.

          “Status report, Sergeant.”

          The words are automatic, somewhat teasing, a little like instinct. When Bucky looks up and meets his eye, Steve realizes he hasn’t done that in nearly an hour. Then Bucky flashes him a little smile and his nerves are momentarily soothed.

          “Well,” Bucky says, all slow and dangerous with his little smile that spells of dance halls and alcohol and trouble, “I’m certainly not hungry anymore.” After a beat of silence, he grins a wide grin. He tosses his hair and says, “So. Mission accomplished, Captain.”

          Steve’s laughter echoes through the carrier all the way into the air.

**Author's Note:**

> STOP looking at me for how much stucky i wrote in a day fml
> 
> *sidenote: the town in Poland is TOTALLY made up because my internet sucks and i couldn't easily find the name of a remote Polish fishing village. so just use your imagination.
> 
> hmu me @ [bkinney :^)](http://bkinney.tumblr.com/post/144307745020)


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